Exploring art and animals in the life of a creative.

A Work Of Art Show Finale: Yay Abdi!

So last night was the final episode to the reality art competition show. Honestly it was far more interesting than all the other episodes combined. It was nice to see the artists being able to create their own art, instead of trying to make it fit some sort of crazy challenge.

Miles’s (aka OCD guy) show revolved around some cellular phone photos taken from a white castle surveillance video. Then he added pixellation and enlarged to a point where they become abstract patterns. He displayed artwork from beginning to end of this process. Kinda his usual schtick of creating a simple pattern through a very complex set of steps. He tried to sell it by personalizing the work, telling a story about a homeless person who froze to death 3 days after he photographed him. This is tragic, but it was not what the work was about despite the one judge making that leap for Miles saying it was. Miles’s work here was like all his work in the past. It was about process. There’s nothing at all wrong with that until you try to sell it as something else. Like something about humanity and death. Despite the usual favoritism for Miles’s work, he was at the bottom of the three for ranking at the end of the exhibit.

Peregrin’s show was set with a carnival theme complete with sideshow. She created a lot of wax figures, heads, frames and horses. She used some Breyer models to cast some horses which is definitely questionable and I’m sure Breyer would take serious offense at. Her showing was both light hearted and bizarre. Her premiere piece was a photo of a taxidermy of twin unborn fawns. Again this strikes me that she wasn’t actually creating by doing this, but the judges ate it all up. They thought her fabulous and much like in previous shows when they threw accolades at her . . . well, I just can’t grasp why. Apparently her art is way about my intellectual level.

Abdi’s show was set around figures of himself. He did life sized sculpturess of figures and placed them on the floor, and paintings and altered photos on the walls. It was quite impressive.

I have felt like this guy is genius. He took on the various challenges and for the most part created unique and wonderful art that was all over the map. Meaning painting, drawing and sculpture, all done really well. One of the judges clearly does not like him and said as much during the show (paraphrasing) “I threw everything at this guy to get him off the show” But in the end he’ the guy that won.

And I’m thrilled because it reaffirms that the system still kinda works despite all the “smarter than thou” airs and floating around on the show.

Congratulations Abid! Now if only they’d create one more episode showing his solo exhibition at the Boston Museum Of Art. That would really be TV worth watching.

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Unfortunately, I was only able to catch the last 25 minutes of this episode. I am so happy for Abdi, too! I was not at all thinking he was going to win after that one judge laid into him. So glad. It sure would be wonderful to have an episode showing his solo show.

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I am a working artist living in a small rural town in Iowa. I own Wild Faces Gallery & Frame where I spend a great deal of my time in order to keep my critters in kibble and hay. This blog is is a place for me to showcase my artwork, my business and the wanderings of my mind.